Year of the Shark: All the Local Sightings and Attacks of 2014

Handout photo of a shark swimming.
–AFP/Getty Images

By

Doug Saffir

September 4, 2014

As the unofficial home of the original “Jaws’’ movie, locals know to expect a shark sighting or two each summer.

But with sharks chewing up kayaks, it’s time to start taking stock of the state of our local waters. Whether you’re celebrating the rebouding shark population or scared to know that means more of them, this summer has been one of the sharkiest in recent memory.

June 24: Fishermen Spot Enormous Great White in Cape Cod Bay

It all started back on June 24, and boy did it start off big. Camera-wielding fishermen out in Cape Cod Bay spotted a shark and started rolling their camera. What was just the tip of a dorsal fin in the distance quickly turned into the real deal. As it turns out, that was an estimated 16-to-18-foot female Great White. In the clip, it’s hard to tell how huge this fish is, but close your eyes to imagine how long 18 feet is. If it helps, picture a Hummer. That’s about 17 feet long.

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June 29: Researchers Find Civic-Sized Sharked Off Nauset Beach

Just five days later, a 12-to-14-foot female Great White (closer to the size of a Honda Civic) was spotted approximately a quarter mile off of Nauset Beach by crews working with the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy (AWSC).

July 11: Man Arrested After Swimming With a Shark at New England Aquarium

Aug. 21 – Aug. 26: Nevermind, Now They’re Out in Full Force, 13 Sharks in 5 Days

Sightings dwindled to zero for the next ten days, from Aug. 11-21, but the summer of sharks wasn’t over. Not even close.

On Aug. 21, researchers posted a video of a shark near Chatham’s South Beach. The male white shark was the 12th sighting of the year, by our count, but Skomal told The Boston Globe that there had likely been “well over a dozen’’ at that point. (What sightings are they hiding from us!? Boston.com contacted Dr. Skomal in the hopes of getting his estimate, but were unable to reach him.)

That’s 13 sharks in less than a week, and when something like that happens, of course people start to get a little shark-crazy.

Aug. 27 – 28: False Sightings Are a Real Bummer for Beach-Goers

Aug. 27 and 28 brought a couple of reported sightings that turned out to be nothing but sunfish. We can cut the spotters some slack here since the dorsal fins of sunfish have a tendency to look like the dorsal fins of sharks. Either way, both non-sightings resulted in officials shutting down long stretches of beach in Marshfield and Duxbury.

Aug. 29: The Sharks Are Coming for our Rivers

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By the end of August, no one really knew what to think. Is that a shark? Is that a sunfish? Is that two kids with snorkels playing a silly prank?